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This episode commenced with a isolated photograph, perhaps the most significant ever taken of a royal family member.

There stood the Baron Killyleagh, with his arm around a teenage girl, while another individual beamed knowingly in the background.

Without that snapshot, captured at a social event in 2001, few would have credited the claims of a adolescent who stated she was moved across the sea and obliged to have brief sexual encounters with a member of the monarchy?

An odd, telling move by someone who had overtly claimed to have no known about her, claimed he could not have had intimate contact with her, and yet provided a substantial sum of family funds to resolve a protracted legal case.

A Long Period of Disgrace

Against this backdrop, conversations of the monarchy acting firmly to distance themselves from Andrew are misguided. This scandal has persisted for the majority of 15 years since that photograph, and another image of Andrew walking congenially with a disgraced financier surfaced.

• Arrogance: How long did his family members, perhaps even his relatives, know that Andrew was so self-entitled?
• Dubious Friendships: They must have understood, if his employees and the police were doing their jobs, that he had some deeply disreputable companions given he unabashedly invited them to estates.
• Monetary Excess: If the family did not know about his sexual proclivities, they certainly knew about his wastefulness with public money.

Trips were printed in official documents: private aircraft travel from the palace to a sporting venue and back again in time for midday meal, chartered planes instead of regular transport, all for the benefit of "Airmiles Andy".

A Life of Privilege

Then there was the arrogance which expected subservience when he entered a room or the supreme consciousness about his honorifics used on his official documents in messages to his friends.

He could get away with it while his parent, who inexplicably indulged him, was still alive. The monarch did at least strip him of royal responsibilities and honorary colonelcies in the consequence of his ill-fated and, we now know, deceptive media appearance six years ago.

Latest Events

Just in the last fortnight that events accelerated, following the publication of biographical works giving more grim particulars of his conduct and that of his companions.

Further disclosures have again exposed Andrew's assumption that he could escape being untruthful about his contact with a notorious figure.

The public (and the media) were far more perceptive of the royal family. There was not a single person of any significance to speak up for him, a outcome of all those years of hubris.

Institutional Fears

The more astute royals realized that. The primary concern is to pass on the institution, if not as before at least complete and untarnished.

They have spent the last 190 years trying to reverse the legacy of previous monarchs, demonstrating they are beneficial, accountable and attentive to their subjects.

He was placing all that in peril in an era when deference and discretion is no longer enough.

Consequences

Ultimately, the well-known uncertain monarch was pushed additional. There was little choice. The palace had surrendered command of the account.

Presently the loss of designations and the persistent and lifetime personal shame that will hurt Andrew most severely.

• Downgrading: Reduced to just a private citizen
• Prior Instance: The primary monarch to lose his honorifics in modern times
• Naval Career: Especially hurtful given his service in the Falklands war

He continues to be a counsellor of state, on paper able to stand in for the sovereign, and he is still eighth in line to the crown, but none of these will ever come to pass.

What Lies Ahead

Can persons he comes across still defer to him? Might they still forget themselves and call him Prince? Might they say Sir,

Naturally, he is not retiring to suburbia, but to the royal family's large property at a royal residence.

In that place, he will be provided by the king with one of the royal residences and given some type of financial support.

This differs from his former home, where he paid a minimal payment for more than 20 years, and the area is a bit remote, but even so it may not be far enough.

Outstanding Concerns

This is not over. There are still records in the possession of US Congress to be disclosed.

• Governmental Scrutiny: Could legislators request additional information
• Financial Investigation: Or scrutinize the misuse of public money
• Judicial Potential: There may even be a law enforcement inquiry into his behavior

Possibly for the present the harm to the monarchy to the monarchy is contained. The narrative from the institution was evidently that the removal of honorifics was what the monarch, and notably other senior royals, sought.

A Shift in Position

No more deception that Andrew was acting willingly. And, notably, the brief statement showed plainly that the royals were siding with the victim's account of events.

Additionally, for the first time they eventually showed regard for the affected individuals: "The measures are judged required, despite the reality that he continues to deny the claims against him."

In the end it is entitlement, self-interest and laziness that will destroy the monarchy. In his folly, personal excess and corruption, Andrew gives the impression never to have understood that truth.